CURRICULUM VITAE
Professor David Hughes
Contact Details:
e-mail: profdavidhughes@aol.com
Telephone number: +44 (0)7798 558276 (mobile/cell)
Current Employment – 2002 to-date:
International speaker, company directorships, international advisory board
memberships; consultant to food industry firms and organisations; Emeritus and
Visiting Professor.
Previous Employment:
1992 -2001 - Professor of Food Marketing, Centre for Food Chain Research, and
Emeritus Professor, Imperial College London (and Wye College, University of
London).
1986-1991 – Marketing Director Herbonics, Inc., Homestead, Florida, U.S.A., and
international development project director (for USAID, IBRD, IFAD, FAO, CIDA etc.).
1980-1986 – Director of Deloitte & Touche Canada (Management Consultants)
based in the Caribbean, Africa and South East Asia.
1975-1980 – Director and co-owner of Broadwith, Hughes & Associates Management
Consultants Canada (acquired by Deloitte et al in 1980).
1974-1975 – Director of Research for the Food Prices Review Board, Federal
Government of Canada, Ottawa, Canada.
1973-1974 – Food Policy Analyst with Agri-Food Canada, Federal Government of
Canada, Ottawa, Canada
Academic Qualifications:
B.Sc. (Hons.) Agricultural Economics, University of Reading, U.K.
M.Sc. Agricultural and Food Marketing, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, U.K.
(Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Scholarship).
Ph.D. Food Marketing, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, U.K.
(Meat and Livestock Commission Fellowship).
Career Background and Current Commercial Involvements:
David is: a non-Executive Director of Berry Gardens Limited, a farmer-owned and
Europe’s largest fresh berry business (turnover US$ 320 million in 2012). He is a
frequent keynote speaker at major national and international food industry seminars
and conferences around the globe. He works closely with food industry firms on the
development of marketing strategies, building partnerships in the food industry, and
with governments on food policy formulation. He is a proponent of building strong
vertical alliances – partnerships – in the food industry; between consumers and
agribusiness, the farm sector, manufacturers, food service and retail. He has many
articles/chapters published in notable national and international journals and books
and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Kent Business School and a Visiting
Professor at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, U.K.
Over two decades, Professor Hughes has been an international advisory board
member of agribusiness and food organisations in the USA, Canada, Europe and
New Zealand (e.g. Rabobank, Food Industry Center, USA, AgResearch NZ).
Travelling 300 days or so per year, David is constantly interacting with senior
management of food and beverage firms across the globe. He is a very frequent key
note speaker and/or Chairman at major national and international conferences
covering all sectors of the food industry. In 2012, David worked in Africa, Asia,
Australasia, Latin America, North America, and throughout Europe with companies
operating in sectors such as: meat, fish and eggs, dairy, fresh produce, wine,
packaged foods, genetics, farm inputs, food and feed ingredients, service sectors
such as finance, packaging, IT, advertising and PR, food manufacturers, retailers,
food service, farmer-owned businesses, and public sector agencies.
In October 1991, David returned to the U.K. after 20 years of professional work
undertaken outside Europe and became the inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food
Marketing at Wye College (now, Imperial College London), University of London. He
established and directed the Food Industry Management Group which offered a
range of under- and post-graduate degrees in business subjects, and completed
research projects on a wide range of food industry issues.
Prior to taking up his university appointment, Dr. Hughes spent four years
establishing a fresh produce business in the USA. The firm produced and marketed
branded fresh herbs to supermarkets and food service outlets in the Eastern USA
and was sold in 2002. In the mid-80’s, he was Project Director of a USA Government
initiative to establish an Agribusiness and Food Venture Capital Trust in the
Caribbean – the Trust sought and took equity positions in growth-orientated
agribusiness and food firms in the Caribbean region. In the first half of the 1980’s, he
established regional offices for the management consulting firm Deloitte Canada in
the Caribbean and East Africa, and was responsible for directing the design and
implementation of development projects in developing/emerging countries in both
hemispheres of the globe.
In the latter half of the 1970’s, living and working in North America, David established
with a partner a management consulting firm and agribusiness market research firm
(both sold to Deloitte et al in 1980). These firms were market leaders in agribusiness
and food consultancy in Canada. Arriving in Canada in 1973, David was a food
policy analyst with the Federal Government, then, Director of Research for the Food
Prices Review Board – an influential Federal Government Commission that
represented the consumers’ interests in food and food policy during the turbulent
high inflation years of the early-to-mid 1970s.